OCM- OLDER CITIZENS MONITORING PROJECT

OCM is a Process of Empowering Poor Older Persons to Take Up Initiatives that are aimed at Monitoring and Influencing Government Policies, Using Locally Gathered Evidence, to Better Their Lives.

Older Citizen Monitoring Project is a follow-up of the United Nations Second World Assembly on Ageing and the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing 2002. This project is a two-year project sponsored by DFID, and it is currently in its final phase, where it is intended to provide local level evidence of the marginalisation of older persons in the policy process that could be used for local and national level advocacy so as to influence change that will lead to increased access to health services by older persons in Kenya.

The implementation areas for the OCM project in Kenya are Misyani in Machakos District and Ngando slums in Nairobi 's Dagoreti division. The project entails enabling the active participation of older persons in monitoring health service delivery within their localities and using the data gathered and analyzed as evidence for advocacy.

The philosophy behind this project is that older person can be empowered to monitor service delivery by the government and demand for it using locally gathered evidence. The OCM project has empowered the older persons to fight for their rights and monitoring health care service delivery to the older persons.

Through the project, a lot of awareness has been created on ageing issues and the participation of older persons in monitoring the services being delivered to them at the grass roots. There have been good outcomes by the project.

During the past year, we made a good relationship with the media including BBC program on Health matters, The Standard, People daily, and KBC TV on the international day of older people.

THE KIBAGARE HOUSING AND SMALL ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROJECT

The Kibagare Housing and Small Entrepreneur project was initiated to address the poor shelter and poverty needs of the slum. A needs assessment showed older persons living in extremely dilapidated houses and in abject poverty. Kibagare slum is located in Kitsuru Location of Westlands Division in Nairobi . It is neighboring the plush Loresho area.

HelpAge Kenya through funding from Aud in Africa has brightened the lives of elderly people in Kibagare by construction of 22 houses in the slum. The houses are done in iron sheets – the choice material by the residents- and also initiated a micro finance scheme to develop a capital base from which older persons can access small loans to establish income-generating activities.

The HIV/AIDS situation in Kibagare is disastrous and many older persons have as many as 6 orphans to look after. The project has not only restored comfort in form of shelter to the older persons and orphans, but has been able to a liven the entrepreneurial spirit among the older persons. Some of the activities the older persons are engaged in include stating up small hotel business, hawking food items and tealeaves etc.

While constructing the houses the older persons were fully involved in assisting one another. But one challenge was that the funds used in this project were quite limited and there is need to construct more houses in Kibagare.